Charlinder's Walk (21 page)

"It's insane, the situation they’ve put you in," said Charlinder. Hattie’s face changed from bewildered to annoyed, while he continued, "and I wish there was something I could do, or some idea I could give you, to help you out of this trap. But this here, isn’t going to help."

"We don’t need your pity, Char," Hattie's voice rang out as he walked away. "We just want a little bit of your stuff."

"You'll just have to do without it."

He managed to find Lacey without too much walking around. When he came back with her to Vilma and Peter's house, Cleo and Hattie were gone. He slept the rest of the night in the house.

There was no more reason to stay in the morning. He'd been treated to two nights' sleep and several square meals, he'd met a number of new people and had no desire to get to know them any further. Vilma asked him if she should ask Jansen for his fleece back.

It turned out that Charlinder's share of Lacey's fleece looked like marginally more than half. He hated to think of what would have happened if he'd stayed for a week, and he wasn't even sure how much of the withholding was given to Vilma and Peter.

"Should I steer clear of anyone out there?" he asked his hostess on the way out.

"I don’t know what you mean."

"I’m going to see another community out there. Anyone I should avoid?"

"I can’t imagine why there should be a problem," said Vilma, "since you’re not expected to come back."

His sheep at his side and the remaining fleece resting precariously atop his pack, he consulted his compass and headed west.

On the way out, he came upon a nondescript building; a blocky structure of brick and mortar with few, small windows. Checking to see there was no one watching, he peeked inside.

It was full of nothing but shelf upon shelf of enough food to get the whole town through the winter and well into the following spring. Bringing Lacey inside with him, he stuffed his pack full of as many potatoes, oats, dried vegetables, salted meat and any number of other edible-looking things as a young man could possibly carry off in one trip.

Chapter Seventeen

Alaska

He had neither the need nor the inclination to stop at another settlement for a few weeks after that. The nearest comparison he could make was when he'd first set out from the Paleola and didn't want to stop anywhere until he reached the Mississippi, only now he was in much warmer weather. It wasn't his food supply, however, but his curiosity that eventually changed his mind. He wanted to know where he was in relation to the coast, and that would have to mean finding someone to mark his map.

The place where he made his stop was a smaller and simpler village than the community under the Hyatts' regime, though he was not about to hold anyone to their standard. The mark on his map explained how they had geography in their favor. They were close enough to the coast to enjoy a maritime climate rather than a northern mountain one. They were surrounded by forest whose density and greenness any mid-Atlantic ecosystem would envy. The people were friendly enough to Charlinder and Lacey, but they spent their visit sleeping in the shade of a tree because no one had enough room to shelter another adult.

His hosts, a couple named Leo and Ana, made the same agreement with him as David and Annette had done. He shared the day's milk from Lacey with them, and they shared the day's food with him. While Leo was out fishing, Ana had no problem in letting Charlinder help her with the cooking. In fact she found it very helpful to have an extra pair of hands in the kitchen while she dealt with the antics of her children. The older six were fine, but the younger three kept her on her toes.

He got along with her well enough during the hectic daylight hours when Ana didn't have time to ask him about much aside from his work. She liked the idea of him teaching school, though her casual suggestion that he could stay for several months and teach their community's children how to read and write was something that worried him. He couldn’t tell whether she meant it in jest. When Leo and their older sons came home from a day of fishing and they sat the family down for dinner, the conversation took a turn that made Charlinder wonder whether he'd exercised the best judgment in stopping at this village. His hosts wanted to know about his family life and were surprised to hear he was an only child, in fact Ana was appalled.

She was no less perturbed to hear that Paleolan families usually had no more than four children. Charlinder was equally nonplussed with her, though he didn't show it, because just that afternoon she'd been complaining to him about how much her large family exhausted her. Perhaps he was missing something, but it seemed she thought it was selfish for any parent not to be as stressed and overburdened as she was.

It was the sort of conversation that made him feel relieved to fall asleep beside Lacey. Dealing with her was entirely simple and straightforward. She complained of very basic and understandable concerns: when she needed to eat or rest, when her udder was full. He let them take a break from walking so she could graze and he could rest, or eat, or both. When that wasn’t enough, he carried her and she didn’t struggle. He stopped, or woke up, to milk her. She approved. He got between her and any wolves howling within earshot, and she appreciated it. True, Lacey wasn't much for conversation, but she was very clear about what she wanted out of life, and this made Charlinder's lot wonderfully uncomplicated when they were walking together through endless and unfamiliar territory, and it suddenly struck him that he had not appreciated this benefit of her company nearly as much as he should have. He had a lot of respect for Ana for managing her unwieldy family without losing her head, but if it was such an onerous responsibility, then why was she so hostile to the idea of less? Then again, after the display of pointlessly destructive restriction he'd recently seen in the Hyatts' little kingdom, Ana and Leo seemed perfectly sensible.

The next morning, he said his goodbyes, but he couldn't leave right away. Ana and her sister and best friend cornered him on his way out and asked him about the birth control methods Paleolans used.

Charlinder found himself smiling so quickly he had to restrain himself from laughing. It would take a couple of hours to tell them how condoms were made from deer guts, but he had nothing to offer if not his time. "Yeah, I can do that. Let's sit down and I'll tell you all about it."

Once he left that village, there was nowhere to go but north. The weather began to cool as he traveled, which was fortunate, as Charlinder had not counted on carrying more than half a fleece on his back while walking over irregular terrain in the middle of summer. He usually processed some wool after each meal and spun it on his drop-spindle while walking, which helped to soothe away the monotony of uncertainty in traversing a new mountain or finding his way around a new river at every turn. At core, however, he needed to address the heat and smell of holding multiple pounds of unprocessed wool just behind his head, which was more than warm and sweaty enough already. He'd been under the impression that the Canadian region was much colder than his familiar mid-Atlantic climate, but their summer suffered no lack of heat. He frequently took off his shirt and draped it over Lacey's fleece during the day, and felt much more comfortable for it. He still stopped at villages regularly, and was happy to hear that he was well into the territory of Alaska in early August.

"I hear you're headed to the Bering Strait," said an old man later in the month while Charlinder was visiting his village.

"Yes, that's right."

"I can't imagine what you'd want with the Strait, though," he remarked. "You don't look so prepared to do business with the Russians."

"I'm going to Europe, actually."

The old man thought for a moment. "Yeah, then you'll need to cross the Strait. I'll tell you how to get there. Keep going west until you get to the coast. There's a Yu'pik village called Walrus Head. On either side of the place they've got a big old tree trunk carved in the shape of a walrus, you can’t miss it. Get on their good side, and they'll take you and your sheep across the Strait."

"How difficult is it to 'get on their good side'?"

"They're getting into a busy time of year, and it’s not difficult if you’re ready to lend a hand."

The walk to the coast took three more days, and left Charlinder slightly uneasy, as he could see no walrus-shaped tree trunk carving. As he had encountered such uncertainty many times already since January, however, this was nothing he couldn't handle. According to his compass, the land on one side receded to the east, while the other side continued west. Charlinder went north along the west-bulging coastline, and by the end of the day, he'd found a giant wooden carving of a walrus.

The village of Walrus Head, as it turned out, was preparing for a village festival to mark the end of summer, and Charlinder could feel that much. Between the passing of days and the increasing latitudes, the weather was getting cooler and the days shorter. Considering that winter would mean uninterrupted darkness, he wasn't sure the end of summer was anything to celebrate, but just as the European pagans found a way to enjoy the shortest days of the year, so the Alaskans saw fit to observe the close of August. His hosts, meanwhile, did not demand an explanation for why he wanted to cross the Bering Strait with a milking ewe, only asked him to help with the preparations for this festival whose name he couldn't pronounce but that they let him call Autumn Festival, with the promise that they would arrange his transportation in return.

The family hosting Charlinder declined his offer of Lacey's milk, as they said it would make them sick. They asked him to contribute to their village's labors. His work consisted mainly of splitting wood and gutting the day's catch from the Arctic Ocean, which included a great deal of walrus. With all the blubber they carried, it was messier than cleaning deer, but it was easy enough to learn. The local men helped him clean the blood off himself, and he went back to his hosts' home to milk Lacey. The agreement with his hosts was that he would stay and help until the celebration was over, and then he would have a spot in a canoe across the Strait the next morning.

It was the day of the celebration. There were three fire pits set up at equidistant points around the village center, with long tables laden with food arranged in lines outside the triangle. After nightfall, the fires were lit. The village chief stood in the middle of the triangle and gave a speech while the locals stood outside the arrangement of bonfires and listened. Charlinder stood with his hosts, who stood raptly attentive at their chief's words. As he was speaking the Yu'pik language, Charlinder had no idea what he was saying, but the villagers cheered when he was finished. People came through the crowd carrying drums and sat in a circle within the triangle of bonfires and began to beat out a rhythm. A few villagers came into the circle and began to dance. The rest of the villagers milled around the area, talked and helped themselves to the feast.

More of them gradually joined the dancers, so the dancing circle became fuller and the outside crowd thinned. Charlinder wasn't familiar with their dancing steps and so didn't dare join them. The decision was out of his hands, however, as his hosts' five-year-old son started pulling him toward the dancers. Charlinder protested, but several surrounding adults pushed him into the fray. As they started dancing themselves, it became clear that Charlinder would not be allowed to get away without dancing. He waved his arms and legs around in a rhythmic approximation of the Yu'piks' movements and felt rather stupid, but the boy and the adults cheered him on, so he grinned and kept at it. Before long, he had a feel for the drumbeat and was throwing his arms into the air at the same time as the growing crowd. The night became a blur of dark sky, golden flame and fire-lit arms and legs and once Charlinder started to laugh, he didn't really stop for quite a long time. For the first time since leaving his home village, he appreciated that in a journey as long as this one, there was more than the destination.

It didn't matter that he was exhausted; he woke up ahead of the family the next morning. Charlinder said his goodbyes and let the father lead him to the shore where the traders were filling their boats.

"You'll go with us," beckoned a man at the largest boat. "Put in your pack first, then the sheep."

Charlinder stepped into the water next to the boat and gasped in pain and shock.

"You're from farther south, aren't you?" said the man. "This isn't a warm water climate, here."

"I gathered that," Charlinder managed and thumped his baggage into the boat. He then hopped back to the bank and lifted Lacey into his arms. She started bleating as soon as she was inside. He climbed in after her and kept her in place while the traders took their places.

"Is your sheep going to have trouble making the trip?"

He understood that to mean they were afraid Lacey would give them problems. "Just let me get her steady, she'll be fine."

He ended up sitting in the bottom of the vessel between the seats so he could hold Lacey on her back in his arms like a large and woolly baby. She still bleated occasionally, but couldn't struggle. They were in the water and rowing across the Strait. When he craned his neck at the right angle, Charlinder could see the Russian shore. He thought Miriam would be proud of him if she knew where he was.

They rowed the boat up to the opposite shore, and it was time for Charlinder to put his feet in icy water again and depart. He had his supplies, including a fresh sack of solid food, he had his sheep, and he knew what direction to take. He said his thanks to the traders, but declined their offer to introduce him to the locals.

"I'll meet some other people farther south and beg for hospitality from them, you know? Thanks again, guys."